Jennifer Militello's Flinch of Song (Tupelo, 2009)

Some favourite passages from Militello's compelling first collection follow. Spacing may be distorted by Blogger's limitations (or my limitations in using Blogger).




So you are 
another, sheltering a little flask of sorrow, with
two eyed caged in wildness.

from "Manifestation"

Its weight

strains the metronome of my heart, and what is absent

makes the world what it is.

from "History of the Always Pain"

All the petals falling from

the same clear pause. And even if it seemed

a dream coming through, it became a reality

leaving. What kept us digging but

the brilliance tangling our woodgrained hair,

opening wind, its wide convertible.

end of "History of Siblings"

I swear it was summer: I was strung through

with light.

opening of "Confusing Past with Passion"

Among the dangers of hungers of others, we are much

too thin.

from "Reunion"

I say, how beautiful

the ruined barn, the late blade of candidness.

I mistake the cathedral for a sodium light

sifting down from how it lingers, everywhere

and sometimes always, a mist of linen,

a hay-sweet night. I notice dandelions

become exact around us.

from "Taking Care"

There is a quiet I excavate

in waiting for you.

from "Manifestation"

The only identity I know is alone in the sigh's

bright wilderness, with workings one can take apart

and still not understand.

opening of "Living Where the Halyards Can Be Heard"

Once the windows open, the cure will whistle in.

last line of "One Side of the Story"

Nothing is made of wind, but wind is made

of wasps caught between the window and the screen.

opening stanza of "Azrael Speaks"

Grief unbuttoning its high-collared dress.

Change as a heron that strikes at the lake.

Death at the heels, herding.

Wind as a skin in that it passes.

from "Miserere"

Buy from independent bookstores! In the UK, you can buy Flinch of Song from Foyle's, in the US from Powell's.